While I’m personally inclined to agree with you, the last time I had a stent put in they (the Cardiologist, other doc and nurses) said it was a ‘procedure’ and not a ‘surgery’. I’m not sure what the distinction is.

They can call it whatever they want, as long as I’m feeling better when they’re done.

All of that said- it’s not that difficult to go through. Hope he didn’t have a heart attack to put him on the table like a lot of us do.

11
posted on 08/06/2013 7:36:15 AM PDT
by Riley
(The Fourth Estate is the Fifth Column.)

any time a person is sedated and unaware...it is medically called surgery..I have lived with a heart diseased person for 52 years...a quad bypass, and stents number of times, and now his second defibrillator is implanted...they have come a long way with caring for the heart...how thankful we who have endured this know...

this morning my brother in law just was released from hospital after having two stents implanted...a family of eight males, all with heart disease...inherited from both sides of the family...

my husbands stents didn't go through a catheter, they did go into the groin area with an incision ..

and we don't know how they did GWB, only the doctors reporting he HAD HEART SURGERY...

Catheters for stents usually enter through the groin area. Some doctors call it a percutaneous procedure.

I think the distinction for heart surgery is whether they crack open the chest. There's no reason to open the chest to place a catheter. There are optional entry points in the upper body which are percutaneous, too.

23
posted on 08/06/2013 8:14:44 AM PDT
by Moonman62
(The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)

Our neighbor's mom stroked out during an angiogram; left her with very poor vision for the rest of her life.

The hospital I worked for was a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital...considered to be one of the best in the world.I can assure you that even at the very best hospitals there's no iron clad guarantee that everything will go right.There are very,very few...if any..."sure things" in medicine.

If the cardiologist (or surgeon) finds blockage with an angiogram (imaging procedure), then an option is to implant stents. Often, the doctor will ask for permission to implant stents when an angiogram is done.

A catheter is run to the heart and dyes are injected so that X-rays might see blockage.

During this procedure, the catheter may be used to implant a stent.

Putting a stent in the heart may be dangerous is there is a problem (implanted in wrong area).

Most people are familiar with CABG (pronounced cabbage). Doctors and nurses love to use this term for bypass surgery.

This is the bypass surgery. The CABG stands for Coronary Artery Bypass Graft.

This is the surgery where the chest has to be cracked open and the sternum cut in two.

If a doctor messes up a stent, then a surgery may be necessary to correct that (and that is known to happen).

28
posted on 08/06/2013 8:27:10 AM PDT
by topher
(Traditional values -- especially family values -- which have been proven over time.)

FYI.....just a little bit of experience here! My husband is a heart transplant recipient, three years out. He gets annual full heart physicals at OSU, Ross Heart Hospital. This year, they did the heart cath through his wrist. Some doctors, not all, are now doing stents through the wrist as well. This procedure is so much easier, instead of waiting for the groin to close for hours, it cuts that time by 2/3, far less invasive and heals much quicker.

Thanks for the ping. Prayers up for him and his family. He may find that he feels better than he has in a long time, without even realizing that he wasn’t feeling as well as he might. I’m glad they found this on a routine physical before it did serious damage.

40
posted on 08/06/2013 10:21:52 AM PDT
by lonevoice
(Today I broke my personal record for most consecutive days lived)

...that’s actually quite rare, and even if the decision is through the wrist, the groin area is prepared as well, as the passage to the heart is more direct...

...my stent was deployed six years ago, to open the posterolateral artery which had completely blocked...needlessly I thought, I had to spend a night in the cardiac unit, where they come in every hour on the hour to draw blood, and then say in the morning, ‘Did you get any sleep?’...heh, hospital humor...

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